Can you expand on that second sentence some because that's exactly what I was trying to get at with the ills of capitalism and the state going hand in hand but a lot of this is informed by my ancedotal/lived experience and I don't have enough knowledge/health to break it down as well as a lot of you in here can

Edit: just saw the edit and that helps but anything more would be welcomed

im just ripping most of this from another source cuz im lazy but:

markets prices and everything else in the real world dont work exactly how the market presupposes. in many ways markets are systematically inefficient (as according to the work of robert hahnel) because real world markets are rarely truely competitive or in equilibrium. even the virtues of what should be extolled as values of markets are generally sidestepped by large monopolies that are powerful enough to ignore self-regulation and can outcompete smaller vendors in the market. manipulation of supply through arbitrary pricing, as well as hoarding and lobbying and collusion etc.

real world markets dont conform to the theoretical models in many ways and "truly free and competitive markets" are not only impossible at this stage as a result, but are actively fought against by capitalists.

if markets were supposed to be so extremely efficient, why are boom and bust cycles and over supply and constant associated severe recessions that drown millions of people into poverty, allowing bigger actors in the market to survive and monopolize even more leverage over the "fairness" of the market while the competition drowns. if markets were suppposed to be so efficient, why doesn't price and market mechanisms protect against such recessions, and when crisis strike why do the capitalists resort to non market mechanisms but rely on bailouts and pump priming. if markets were supposed to be so efficient, how come the third world countries that participate in libertarian market policies continue to economically just barely get by, while the socialist countries "interfering" in the market are doing incredibly better.

Look at the illegal d*** market. Basically all the bad stuff going on there is because it is outside the state apparatus. You can get ripped off by your plug and vice versa, anti-snitching stuff, massive distrust, turf wars....a d*** dealer can't sue you for breach of contract, a debt collector won't repo your car, a police officer won''t protect your stash, you can't be sent to jail for ripping customers off. These are all possible under a state, mostly in favor of capitalists of course.

Capitalism needs violence to enforce it and the state can institutionally and systematically produce that violence in a very subtle way. Being dragged in front of a court is also a form of violence, having a deed is a form of exclusion...

Now also take the common infrastructure all people use (water, roads, utilities), which wouldnt be possible without a state. How are you gonna build roads with a state? How will sidewalks work? Who are you gonna pay to walk on the street? Will every street have a different owner? You get into very silly scenarios in capitalism without a state.

Not to mention like 50% of R&D is done by public entities.

Not to mention the currency system.

Sent u a message king

Kinda unbelievable how unwilling the democrats are to wield power on ANYTHING. Insane caricatures of the liberal subject. Used to think "America is a one party state" was a whatever slogan but it's 100% solid.

And then contrast that with how rhe right but more specifically their Supreme Court justices have settled in their role as the all powerful priesthood class. People forget that they really could've just gave the election to trump but for whatever reason decided not to. They have zero accountability and can do whatever they want. Makes me angry just thinking about it.

Zizek said that communism is just a new set of problems to be solved and I agree
Any society is just that, utopia is false

Ain’t no way you can type this and make critiques on Marx @sniper this is the BASIS of Marxism

Yeah, I know

Every society is that. A new set of problems, a new set of contradictions

The Marxists solve them dialectically.

Lenin’s dialectics are too mechanistic.

My comrades already grave you great responses but also send your libertarian friend this meme

i would agree with Stalin on that but how was Lenin mechanistic

Addded

Psychology has cleared up a lot of things for me where materialism leaves big blank spots. The Mass Psychology of Fascism is an excellent book.

Why

Ehhh be careful w that tho b

Psychology contains a lot of IDEOLOGY.. speaking as a psych student

But that book is prolly interesting i wanted to read that at some point

Watch out for PSYCHO-HISTORY

best way to convert a friend from being a standard-issue liberal? book reccs?

Are they Bernie lib?

Yes

Socialism and Marx have been made so taboo it’s incredibly sad. forget about communism. Americans’ first reaction is communism = bad

You should first see what he thinks socialism and Marx are then help deconstruct possible misconceptions regarding those.

I’d recommend Einstein’s “Why Socialism” after that to provide some ethos

People can hate every aspect of our government and the power of corporations and then just completely avoid its biggest critique

develop class consciousness through the issues that personally matter to them.

if it's hospital bills point them towards the bloated healthcare privatization system designed to squeeze every drop of worth out of them. if it's racism point them towards the origins of racism and how it has been systematically implemented as a tool of the bourgeois class. if it's climate change you can point them towards the infinite growth on a finite planet issues.

the contradictions reveal themselves to everyone at some point, it is ultimately our job to develop the systematic explanations of these contradictions for them.

Some may disagree but I think giving people straight-up books from the outset is the worst way to introduce someone to leftism.

Use practical examples and explain contradictions/reasonability through theory, but in your own words and not with too much jargon.

The base, base foundation of connecting with their daily lives, especially in terms of work (since everyone has to do it) and exploitation of labor (since everyone is sick of their jobs one way or another).

A common liberal-leaning person hesitates on socialism because they believe leftism is too radical and utopian in nature, when the tenets are very grounded and whose early goals can easily be achievable in our lifetimes. The framework of the status quo is the best propaganda capitalism has ever completed.